I reviewed Separate Tables on this thread a while ago and agree that it's better than any 'Blockbuster'.
Separate Tables (1958)
This black and white rendition of the celebrated play by Terence Rattigan has a tremendous cast including David Niven, Burt Lancaster, Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Wendy Hiller, Gladys Cooper and Felix Aylmer.
An English seaside hotel has a number of residents, some of whom have the inevitable skeleton in the cupboard and the resultant exposure makes for the dramatic tension between them.
The main problem with the film is that it’s set-bound and the entrances and exits betray its stage origin all too obviously but, despite Deborah Kerr’s overplaying the repressed daughter of an overbearing mother, there are some excellent performances from Wendy Hiller, David Niven and Burt Lancaster. Lancaster was in my view one of the most natural actors to come out of Hollywood and turns in a very watchable performance as an American writer trying to come to terms with the failure of his marriage to Rita Hayworth, who turns up at the hotel having tracked him down through his agent.
The main thrust of the film comes from the fact that the resident British army major, played by David Niven, is in reality a confidence trickster who is arrested for molesting women in a cinema.
David Niven and Wendy Hiller won academy awards for their performances.
8/10